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What Say You In The Rutger Student Death?
Hi everyone, it’s Dr. Mike and it’s blog time again. This one is ripped right from the headlines and I want to see what you think of this story.
Two 18-year old Rutgers University students, Molly Wei and Dharun Ravi, are accused of invasion of privacy by secretly webcasting the sex life of a fellow freshman 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, and another male student who hasn’t been identified as of yet.
Ravi was Tyler’s roommate and on September 19th tweeted “Roomate asked for the room till midnight. I went into Molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”
On September 21st Ravi tweeted “Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it’s happening again.” The sexual encounter of Tyler and this other male student was posted live on the Internet.
Three days later, Tyler posted a comment on facebook at 8:42 p.m. that read “Jumping of the gw bridge sorry.” Tyler committed suicide by jumping to his death off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River.
Prosecutors are also weighing whether to charge Wei and Ravi with a hate crime. Ravi and Wei could face up to five years in prison if convicted of the invasion-privacy charges.
On the other side Wei’s attorney has stated that Wei’s ”remarkable reputation is being unjustly tarnished by uninformed and incorrect assumptions and that the firestorm surrounding the charges were a classic rush to judgment and maligned by unfounded attacks on her character.”
This story unfolds as I just finished completing my Think Before You Click – Internet Safety For Teens: A Parents Guide To Protecting Your Kids Online book and audio program that gets into the good, the bad and the ugly of the Internet as well as cell phones and the issue of “Sexting” which is sending nude photos to others via the cell phone.
Obviously this story fits with what I just finished producing so here’s my question to you: Is the Internet the problem here? Is the Internet to blame? Would we be as upset if it involved the use of a camera? What if all of this was laid out in the form of a letter, would that make a difference? Is the issue here one of the use of the Golden rule? Is it privacy issue where the person receiving information has a decision and a responsibility as to how to use this information if at all?
Even though the attorney for Wei states her character is being attacked, is this one of those “pop quiz” moments that I have talked about before in other blogs where her “true character” was being tested “even” when she thought no one was watching and she failed to think before she clicked?
Well, what say you?
Now we have a Duke graduate exposing her sexual encounters with a multitude of athletes. She hit the “send” button to three of her girlfriends. She sent them a report on her follies, going so far as to rate their sexual performance, including a bar graph, and pictures of the men. Her “send” to three friends is now global
There are always consequences to our actions. That is why it is so important for parents to emphasize to their children that what may seem to be an innocent,insignificant action can end up with monumental consequences that could influence their future.
Dr. Mike,
Thank you for sharing this informative and thought provoking blog post. Each of our actions has some kind of reaction. I’m going to have my 15 year old son read your post and we are going to discuss it tonight at dinner. Once again, you have raised the consciousness of your readers.
Kind regards,
Ron Stebelton
Dr. Mike:
This is HORRIFIC. At eighteen years of age, those two students should have known better. They are responsible for a death, and if their reputations are “tarnished,” so be it. I can tell you, if I owned a company and they came my way looking for a position, they would have a ZERO CHANCE of being employed. Their actions displayed their true characters. This is no childish prank! I wonder how tarnished this young man’s parents will be for the rest of their lives losing a son over something as terrible as this? This has got to stop.